What is OCIO?
OpenColorIO is an industry-standard, open-source color management solution integrated in many content creation, editing, and finishing applications. It uses configuration files to define the color spaces used for input, rendering, display, and output, as well as to automate the transformations between these spaces. 3ds Max's default configuration is based on ACES, the Academy Color Encoding System, or you can use a custom config instead.
What configuration is shipping with 3ds Max 2024?
3ds Max's built-in configuration file is based on ACES, the Academy Color Encoding System. It offers a choice of color spaces and transforms that are suitable for a modern pipeline. Alternatively, you can use a custom config file such as one that has been especially developed for your project or studio. You can download sample configs as well as get additional information about OpenColorIO from https://opencolorio.org/.
How do I get started with OCIO?
To set up color management, choose one of the OCIO-based options for Color Management Mode on the Color Management panel of the Preference Settings dialog. After that, you can select the spaces and transforms used for rendering, output, viewing, and display from the options available in the config. The rendering spaces in the built-in config are all scene-linear, which is compatible with modern renderers. Note that the first time you select OCIO mode you will be presented with a pop-up window advising you that this is a technology preview. You can choose to not show this window again.
(New Color Management tab in Preferences Dialog)
What controls do I get with OCIO mode?
- Defaults for the display and view transforms can be set globally, or, set individually for different windows and UI elements.
- Defaults can be overridden on-the-fly in a viewport for the Framebuffer window which is useful for diagnostic purposes, or if a window is displayed on a different monitor.
- The transforms for automatically converting input images to the rendering space are determined by the rules defined in the config file, but you can always declare that a file has a different color space when selecting it in an image browser such as the Select Bitmap Image File Dialog.
- For rendered output, you can apply any valid combination of display and view transforms available in the config file. Alternatively, you can select to convert it to another color space.
(New color management controls in the Select Bitmap Image File Dialog)
